Context! Context! Context! (podcast)

Can be listened/downloaded from the above website or downloaded from itunes

Welcome to the latest iainabernethy.com podcast! This month we cover the very important topic of “context”. The failure to understand the huge impact of context is one of the biggest problems in modern martial arts / self-defence. This failure has people training in incorrect, inefficient and sometimes downright dangerous ways. It can also stop us from enjoying all the fun and benefits our training can bring us.

In the podcast I define what I mean by “context”, explain how important it is to define the “win”, look at how context and the “win” determine what pool of techniques we should draw from, how the very effective tactics in one context can be disastrous in another, etc. I also look at some of the common misunderstandings relating to context.

Context is often an underlying issue in many debates and discussions where we see people criticising “apples” because they are not like “oranges”, and where people see defining context as a slight to their favoured art or system. To me, context is one of the most important, and most widely undervalued and misunderstood issues in modern training. Bizarrely, it also causes the most heated discussions, whereas, when understood, it should make people realise such heated debates are largely pointless. When context is understood we can start to see the value of all approaches and how nothing can be “right” all the time.

The podcast also has an update on the World Combat Association and news of my books coming soon to Kindle. I hope you enjoy this month’s podcast and I’ll be back with more next month.